Stupid
by TheChemistJorax
Summary: Because sometimes things just don't work out like you want them to. Oneshot


A/N: I needed to get back into the swing of these characters and writing fics for them so I typed up this quick little oneshot. I wanted to do something similar to Stay because that's the story I had the most fun writing since it's just a big pile of character stuff. Anywho, I figured I would just do the opposite of that story here haha so anyways, here we go….

As always, though there is sex it isn't written to be 'sexy'. Just a friendly warning for those who came looking for good smut. Oh and this story is in no way related to any other fic of mine.

* * *

Shepard knew it was Miranda who waited outside the door before she even granted EDI permission to unlock it. So many hours into the Normandy's night-cycle, it had to be her. After all, no one else would be up at that manufactured hour and think so little of disturbing what would likely be their sleeping commanding officer.

Not to mention she had already been visited by the majority of her closest comrades on the vessel and Miranda was one of the few she had yet to hear from. Throughout the day, all had attempted to coax Shepard out of her self-pitying anguish, or the very least out of her cabin.

It hadn't worked.

The hour was late, sure, but Shepard had not been sleeping so there was no threat of disturbance. Instead, she had been busying her body and mind with her last unfinished model.

The bits and pieces lay scattered about the desk in front of her, waiting to be meticulously sorted in the coming hours.

Models were simple, fixed. One piece fit into the other, every single miniature ship solvable with mere time. Nothing would be destroyed if she made a mistake, put one wrong piece into another. Nothing would vanish, nothing would hurt, nothing would die.

She would simply pull the error apart and then fix it.

Easy.

Good.

Fun.

At least, it was a lot better than facing nightmares.

"You look horrible."

It was the first thing Miranda said when Shepard swiveled her chair around to meet the woman.

She smirked, but didn't stand in greeting as usual. It was far too late for power plays. Miranda was welcome to stand and tower over her, Shepard had grown far too weary for their normal practices. She would be putting up little resistance that night, there was not a single ounce of her that desired any sort of authority.

She had already held enough power that day, had already seized enough control. Shepard had been calling the shots and her squad had been too late. The universe was just over half a colony lesser, and she had spent the rest of her day in her room moping, _lamenting_, about how it had been all her fault.

What good was a hero who was anything but heroic? What good was a savior who didn't save, who couldn't rescue? Why, out of everyone who had ever died, who had ever had a family to mourn them, had she gotten the privilege of coming back?

She who was a brutish puppet of the Alliance, she who had nobody waiting back home, she who could do nothing to help a single colony…

What fucking right did she have to come back, to act with any sort of authority, to play champion?

The last thing she wanted was control.

"What do you need, Miranda?" Shepard questioned tiredly, slumping back in her chair. It was a far cry from the dominating figure she usually struck.

The words were unnecessary. Both women knew what was going happening, knew why Miranda was there.

"Today's report," Miranda replied, lifting her hands a fraction so the datapad in them would catch Shepard's eye.

A half-truth.

They insisted on Shepard signing off on Miranda's daily reports to her boss. 'They' being Miranda and the Illusive Man, of course.

At first Shepard had been wildly insulted. It was an obvious ploy to make her feel more in control. And she was on to them from day one, under no illusions that Miranda wasn't sending a real report of exactly whatever she saw fit on the side.

After the initial offense however, she decided to play along with their games.

For one thing, feigning stupidity would work in her favor. A less suspicious Shepard would need less looking after, less manipulation. As long as she remained aware of their schemes she could remain a step ahead of the game.

Her second reasoning had surprised even her in its sentimentality.

The act was merely reassuring, Miranda's visits with her reports, because that was what a real executive officer would do aboard a real warship.

Shepard could at least pretend she had some semblance of control on their day to day affairs and on what information left the Normandy, and signing off on the intelligence was a soothing routine to fall back into, one reminiscent of her days in the Alliance.

It was a routine she had shared with Anderson back when the roles had been reversed, and then later with Pressly. Despite her better judgment it was an easy habit to slip back into, especially considering the additional benefits Miranda had unexpectedly initiated.

Which of course explained her arrival at such an ungodly hour.

"Right," Shepard sighed out knowingly, as though she had been waiting up for the woman all the while.

Maybe she had been.

She abandoned what Miranda so disdainfully referred to as her toys and finally stood, knowing full well it would be quite some time before she would be giving the green light on any reports. The woman before her quite clearly had other business to attend to first.

There had been a point in time when every square inch of the ship had been monitored, but those days were short lived. Their commander had discovered the devices and made her opinion of them known. It had been the one bit of manipulative control she had detected that Shepard had openly acknowledged to her 'saviors'.

The false reports she would stomach. The blatant hiring of familiar and friendly faces to cloud her judgment and give false comfort she could tolerate. But the recording of her every move in her personal room she would not allow.

Until Shepard's cabin was free from surveillance, there would be no suicide mission.

Her initial tantrum and the resulting consequences had been a headache for Miranda involving many days of frustrating correspondence with the Illusive Man until the woman got her way. The only upside that had come from the ordeal was the privacy they could now share on occasion when the agent so desired.

This was just such an occasion, and as per usual Shepard waited for her companion to make the first move. Oddly though, Miranda's eyes held a light of reluctance, a sort of wariness Shepard had never discovered in her before.

She was quick, decisive; she knew and retrieved what she wanted. Her momentary hesitance confused Shepard, but as quickly as it flashed across her features it was gone, and then their lips met.

It didn't make sense. After all, Miranda had been the one to initiate such behavior in the first place.

At first Shepard assumed it was another ploy, a grasp for power yet again by the wonderful mister Illusive. A way to earn her trust and loyalty, to have complete control. If not through a chip in the brain, then through a crack in the heart.

In all honesty, it would have likely been quite effective.

Shepard soon realized that this was all Miranda though, because she wasn't being buttered up, she wasn't being romanced. There was no whispered talk of politics beneath the sheets, no attempts to seduce her into sympathizing with Cerberus' ideals.

Frankly, there was little talk at all.

It was completely selfish. It was completely Miranda.

Every meeting was undoubtedly, unashamedly, about her. _For her. _

This time was no different, so just why had the woman hesitated? Why had she seemed reluctant? What made this meeting different than all the others?

The mystery seemed less important when they were no longer clothed.

For a second Shepard thought she might stop it, push the other woman away. After all she was goddamn tired, unreasonably miserable, and altogether a mess of wayward emotions. This wasn't exactly a particularly great time.

She didn't though, couldn't, because it was Miranda.

Whatever the hell that meant.

All she knew was that Miranda had this unsettling habit of making everything Shepard had ever fussed, worried, or cried over seem infinitely more manageable.

They were colliding into the desk, and then stumbling down the stairs, and then crashing onto the mattress, and it wasn't really the time for thinking over things too carefully.

Shepard was ready to lose herself in the physical movements of the act, it was easier that way, but again Miranda was pulling her out of the moment, straddling her hips instead of moving under her as usual.

Miranda didn't give. Miranda took these moments, these sensations, for herself.

She had wormed her way into Shepard's head, and then bed, and then…

No, that was stupid.

She took everything for herself. She was selfish, every night they shared was for her and she gave nothing back before slipping away into the elevator, returning only when she alone desired it.

Shepard was left behind to despise herself, to wage a war between her head and every other square inch of her body.

Miranda probably knew it too. She had to know what she did to Shepard, that constant battle she fueled.

The woman who hates everything about Cerberus. The one revolted by every action, who disagrees to the very core of her being with the organization. The one who resents them with all of her soul, who lives to prove them wrong, to be the infallible hero.

_There's always another way. _

That was how she defined herself. Those were the labels Shepard wore so proudly.

And she also just so happened to be fucking the Illusive Man's lapdog on the side.

How was she supposed to live with herself? How was that supposed to be okay?

And there Miranda was, confusing the issue even further by suddenly making everything _so very different. _

She moved against Shepard in a way they had only done once before, all the way back in their very first meeting of the sort. Miranda had allowed it to happen for only a moment, quickly switching positions for something less personal. The closeness of their current circumstance, the intimacy of it, was something Miranda frequently pulled away from.

It also happened to be just what Shepard so desperately searched for, what she so desperately needed now.

Just this once, Miranda seemed to be in a gracious sort of mood as she rolled her hips along Shepard's, grinding their sexes together. She moved carefully, slowly, as though studying her companion's reaction to each miniscule movement.

Their breath was allowed to mingle between them in the air like that, their eyes allowed to connect. She didn't glance away, she didn't stare pointedly up at the ceiling. For once Miranda was fully there in the moment.

Shepard shuddered at the unfamiliar sensations coming from a so familiar partner, raising her hips to meet every drive. Tentatively, she lifted her hands towards the woman on top of her, one to her hip, the other to her neck, waiting for Miranda to stop, to violently pull away.

She didn't.

Her hips pulled up at a faster pace, their bodies clashing more roughly as composure was abandoned in favor of friction. It was as though the touches had actually encouraged her, had spurred her on. For the first time in a long time she let Shepard crane her neck up to actually initiate a kiss.

In fact, it might never have happened before.

Suddenly Shepard's heart was clenching because this most definitely wasn't fucking. It wasn't screwing. It wasn't any of the coarse, vulgar words Shepard had borrowed from Jack to hide behind and make these encounters easier on herself.

She wasn't fucking any lapdog, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise.

Shepard pulled Miranda down with her when she broke the kiss and slumped back onto the pillow, keeping their foreheads connected. Miranda could breathe into her then as they shamelessly thrust against one another, and she relished in the feeling of _finally _having her as close as she had always needed, subconsciously waiting for the action that would be too much, the one that would send the other woman running.

It never came.

Euphoria ripped through her because this was actually happening. Miranda was actually _letting _it happen. For whatever reason, something had changed. Everything had changed.

Shepard trailed her fingers down from Miranda's neck as they moved together, lightly tracing the distance from the dip of her back to the curve of her hip. Her movements were slow, perhaps too slow for the pace the rest of her body kept, but she couldn't help it. She was too busy marveling at the fact that the movements were permitted, that she could actually take her time.

This wasn't the usual race, the sprint to the finish before Miranda had contented herself and darted off for the solitude of her room. This was anything but.

Maybe it hadn't been the agent's intent, and maybe Shepard resented her a hell of a lot for it, but there might just have been a tiny crack in her heart. Maybe, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring herself to genuinely hate the other woman. Maybe she couldn't stop herself from trusting her. Maybe, without even trying, Miranda had utterly and completely secured her commander's loyalty without Shepard's consent.

Maybe, when Miranda had started this, when she had made the other woman promise she could handle a setup that was only physical in nature, one that never even came close to involving any sort of messy emotional entanglements… Maybe Shepard had lied.

Maybe she really _couldn't _handle it.

Maybe she couldn't fucking handle it at all.

It was the first time Shepard had admitted it to herself, had stopped hiding behind the pretense that on all emotional levels she was disgusted by the woman and was using her just as much - if not more - than she was being used in return.

She knew then that it was the end for them, the end for this. There was no hope to salvage the situation, she was in too deep. She had been for weeks. Things couldn't stay the same, not anymore. She had been given a taste of what they could be, and she knew it had started an insatiable craving within her.

Tonight Miranda had allowed change, sure, but if she wasn't ready to maintain it, Shepard knew what would happen. The blowback was inevitable, and suddenly, Miranda's initial hesitance made a lot more sense.

She had sensed Shepard's weakness for her from the very start of the encounter, had feared it.

The thought drove Shepard further, faster, harder, as though she could somehow physically prove the other woman wrong. Caring wasn't her weakness. If Miranda just let it, it could become her strength. It could become _their _strength.

She gripped Miranda's hips with new determination, guiding the woman along herself with purpose, milking the very most out of each motion and stealing as many kisses as she could reasonably get away with. Miranda's responses were tentative at first, as though she somehow understood Shepard's intent, but her slight resistance lasted for a mere fraction of a second.

Unbelievably, she accepted it when Shepard took charge, when she shifted her legs along the mattress, maneuvering them around Miranda's so their bodies would more efficiently meet. She melted into the wordless direction obediently, emboldening her partner.

All at once Shepard's customary reservations dissolved. This was different, it was new. It was okay to wrap her arms around Miranda. It was okay to hold her, to embrace her, to bury her face into the woman's creamy flesh as she came.

Everything Miranda had ever denied her was suddenly allowed.

For whatever reason, Shepard had been granted the privilege of shattering every rule that had ever been formed between them that night. In the hours that passed, she sure as hell made use of every minute of it.

"It wasn't your fault."

Miranda refused to look at her, to give her any sort of further physical acknowledgement beyond what they had just shared. Shepard lay spent, breathing heavy, doing her best to swallow back the growing feeling of despair.

As soon as they had stilled, the spell had broken, and everything had returned to normal. Miranda had disentangled herself and pulled away as quickly as possible, sat herself on the edge of the mattress and prepared for a timely departure.

She swallowed, clearly uncomfortable.

"No one could have saved more than you did."

And then Shepard understood the difference, why, for just a few incredible hours, the game had changed. The night hadn't been for Miranda at all.

Just once, it had been for Shepard.

God she _despised _how much she fucking adored that woman.

Miranda stood to retrieve her clothes, utterly unashamed. Modesty had never been one of her strengths.

Shepard forced herself to sit up as well, but was sure to look away. She never watched Miranda putting her clothes back on, her actions were too ridged, too clinical. Far different than the way she took them off. It made Shepard uncomfortable.

From the corner of her eye she could make out an unusual flurry of activity. A flutter of clothing, a hasty retreat. There was none of the usual calm elegance. After all, Miranda would never give the impression of embarrassment or shame. She always did precisely what she intended, nothing more, nothing less.

Tonight was different, but she clearly expected Shepard to do her the courtesy of keeping quiet about it and letting her leave in peace. Shepard almost did, too. She had always tried her hardest to appease Miranda, to get her to relax, to earn a smile.

But this time she didn't.

"Where's the fire?"

Shepard was just asking for trouble, but she found herself loathe to filter her thoughts for once. It was an obstruction Miranda didn't deserve. At least, Shepard found she didn't want Miranda to deserve it, despite her better judgment.

She wanted Miranda to be hers, to stay throughout the night, to wake by her side in the morning. She wanted everything that she knew for a fact was going to drive the woman away.

Shepard chanced a peek at her guest. Again, Miranda kept her back to the other woman, even as she shrugged the top of her uniform up over her shoulders.

"I need to send the report in." Her nimble fingers effortlessly clasped the zipper. "Have you signed off on it?"

"Oh, right." Shepard leaned over the side of the mattress to retrieve her own clothing before standing as well. She had never been bashful, but certainly claimed more reticence than Miranda. Fully clothed, she felt more comfortable pursuing further engagement. They were on equal footing once more.

"That's why you came up here in the first place, isn't it?"

She knew it was stupid to push Miranda's buttons then, she really did, but as she had also known earlier, it was too late to stop herself. It was going to happen, this confrontation, whether she initiated it now, or in the morning, or in a month.

Miranda had simply given too much and she had been satisfied by too little.

"Funny, I didn't realize they were so urgent they needed to be shipped off in the middle of a night cycle."

Wow, sleep deprivation really did do funny things to a person. That was _far _more direct than she had intended. It was like she was begging for a fight, looking for a rise, an explosion.

Maybe she should look into obtaining some sort of sleeping medication from Chakwas. She swore she was more sane than this when she was well rested.

The comment would mean little to others, but Shepard knew in the right mood it could easily set Miranda off. The mere suggestion that she actually had wanted to comfort Shepard, that she had actively manufactured a situation with that aim in mind, would drive Miranda mad.

It was true of course, they both knew that, but it was likely meant to be yet another unspoken rule that the words would never be said aloud.

"Either give me permission or don't," Miranda returned disinterestedly, not rising to the challenge in the slightest. She faced the other woman, crossed arms and sour expression betraying her lack of patience.

So the fish weren't biting tonight.

"I'm not in the mood for your games, Jane."

Miranda was quick to use Shepard's first name whenever the woman needed to remember who was _really _in charge. It would likely be happening a lot more in the future if Shepard kept pushing the issue.

With a halfhearted chuckle Shepard gave in for the moment, retrieving the forgotten datapad where it had been abandoned on her floor. She flicked her finger over it, coaxing the virtual pages upwards until she reached the bottom. A few words stuck out to her skimming eyes but she retained little of the information. It was all a big show anyways, her consent hardly mattered.

She graced the report with her acceptance and then thrust it back in Miranda's direction.

"Did you even read it?"

Even if it was all a grand play, Miranda put her full effort into everything she did. She just couldn't help herself. Shepard could imagine her putting far more time than necessary into the project, ensuring its perfection. Clearly the Commander's lack of interest in observing the work offended the woman.

"Do I need to?" Shepard did little to hide her amusement.

Miranda huffed as she accepted the offering, clearly more vexed than she was willing to let on, though she did tug on the pad with more force than was strictly necessary.

"You should be more careful. Blind trust never saved lives. Your penchant for it is what's going to get us all killed."

Cryptic and jaded advice, free of charge, Miranda's specialty.

"I guess I'm lucky I'm putting my blind trust in you." Shepard stretched in a great show of nonchalance, knowing full well Miranda was too intelligent to buy it.

The woman made a disgusted sound deep in the back of her throat. Unable to stomach _that _sort of conversation for any length of time, she turned and swiftly trotted up the steps towards the cabin door. She had gotten everything she had needed from the interaction, there was no reason to linger.

Shepard's chest tightened as she watched the figure retreat. This was how it always ended, and also quite frustratingly how she always _didn't_ want it to end. Cursing her own weakness under her breath, Shepard took a step forward.

"Wait," she called out, ascending a single stair, "I'm sorry."

She was desperate to come up with something, _anything _that would make the woman stay.

Miranda stopped, though her gaze remained fixed on the closed door. She was clearly beyond ready to escape.

"For what?"

"I didn't mean to pick a fight," she faltered, chuckling dryly as she considered just how many of their encounters ended in such a way. "Actually, I _never_ do."

Their eyes met, and for a moment it looked as though Miranda might laugh as well, as though she might tease Shepard, informing her that if such was her intent then she was doing a positively horrendous job of it.

She didn't.

"Fine."

Shepard failed to swallow a bitter laugh.

"That's it?"

Miranda's eyes narrowed. She knew what Shepard was probing for, exactly what Miranda would never ever be willing to give.

"That's it."

Again she moved for the safety the door offered, the sanctuary of isolation that waited just beyond it.

"Hey, hold on."

Miranda stilled.

Her chest tightened.

Her eyes closed.

Her breath slowed.

Her resolved wavered.

For just a moment it wavered. It truly and honestly did, and it hadn't been the first time. In fact it had happened quite often of late, and she realized she had no choice but to make sure it stopped. It would stop because she demanded it to.

Her ego bristled.

Her eyes opened.

Her resolve hardened.

Her patience dissolved.

She turned, gaze cold and scornful.

"What?"

Shepard's confidence collapsed at the hostility, and she found herself suddenly unsure. "I, I don't know," her tongue seemed to stumble gracelessly, "I mean, don't you want to, like, I just-"

"Don't," Miranda cut in warningly.

She knew exactly where this was going. She knew _everything_, had understood the risk of her actions that night. Despite all of the warning bells that had been sounding off in the back of her mind, Miranda had given in anyways, telling herself it would just be one night, just the one time, for Shepard's sake.

Now it was coming back to bite her in the ass.

It wouldn't though, because she was in charge here. She was in charge and she was saying 'no'.

"I just…"

Shepard stopped then of her own accord, because Miranda was full and clearly looking at her then, and she understood the message that was silently being conveyed.

To her this was a simple thing, one that was quickly becoming a nuisance. Shepard was making it an irritation, a chore.

To her it meant distraction, comfort, pleasure.

To her it meant nothing.

"Jane, don't ruin this."

Or maybe it something after all.

"There's something here to ruin?"

Shepard had never been good at disguising her own hopefulness, no matter how much she desired to.

Amusement?

Sure.

Disappointment?

All the damn time.

Anger?

Whenever necessary.

But hope?

Hope had a way of taking a seat right on her sleeve.

Miranda's brow pulled together in exasperation and her fingers rose to pinch at the bridge of her nose.

"I positively _detest_ when people put words in my mouth," she seethed.

Shepard didn't mind the display of irritation, it only spurred her onward. Miranda was only irritated during the rare times people were able to worm their way under her skin, and that only happened when they were able to pin some hidden truth down that she wanted to keep firmly tucked away.

All her irritation meant was that Shepard was making some small sliver of progress.

"Then why don't you take a crack at explaining it yourself?"

For a moment Miranda seemed intent on following this through, on shutting Shepard down forcefully, on showing the woman her place. Just a moment. And then, as always, she forced herself to remain the bigger person.

Miranda, the superior.

"I'm leaving."

Well, frankly Shepard had been expecting that from the very beginning.

She snorted. "Alright, I need to stop."

"What?"Instantly Miranda shed her label of composure incarnate, staring her opponent down.

_She _made the rules, lay the boundaries. She was always the one who said 'go'.

And she was the _only person_ who ever said 'stop'.

This was her game. She owned it.

"I'm done," Shepard elaborated, being as clear as possible.

And it was apparent then that whatever game they were playing, it was no longer Miranda's.

"Why?"

Shepard shook her head, crossing her arms, throwing her weight onto a single leg. It was the stance Miranda took whenever she was winning, which meant Shepard had witnessed it on most occasions.

"Because even though I know you'll absolutely _loathe _me for it, I'm starting to care about you."

Miranda's expression darkened, her cold detachment melting into an ugly sneer. She was radiating anger, but she had already let too many lines be crossed. Shepard was too perceptive now, knew too much about her. She could see the plain panic that was bubbling just underneath the surface.

The terror Miranda was feeling? No amount of bravado could mask it.

"Stop," she ordered threateningly in a desperate bid to regain control.

"More than care," Shepard pressed, throwing more salt into the wound. At that point tact didn't matter, the damage was already done. She wouldn't be getting what she wanted and so neither would Miranda.

"Get out," Miranda demanded, each word comprised of venom.

Everything was playing out exactly as she had foreseen. Who knew Miranda Lawson could be so goddamn predictable? Shepard shook her head once more with a humorless chuckle.

"And there it is." She was being patronizing then, condescending.

She didn't care.

Miranda did.

"I said get out," she repeated, taking a subconscious step closer.

"This is _my _room," Shepard challenged, mimicking the action.

Embarrassment would consume anyone lesser, but Miranda's confidence, her anger, refused to waver. She didn't hesitate, didn't miss a single beat.

"This is done," she hissed. "I'm done. I'll be reporting directly to the Illusive Man from this point forward."

And so the fake power was withdrawn, because Shepard had never really possessed it in the first place. No more illusions, only the simple truth. Shepard only had the control they wanted her to have.

Which really meant she had no control at all, now didn't it?

"Good," she snapped, gesturing towards the meaningless report in Miranda's hands. "You can sign off on your own shit from now on."

"I intend to," Miranda shot back.

"It's not like you haven't been already anyways." Shepard wasn't able to stop herself. Everything bubbled up and boiled over. Too many games, too many tricks.

Once upon a time everything had been black and white and for the love of God she had never been in love with someone every fiber of her being told her to hate so very much.

"I've had enough of your fucking patronizing. Tell me, if you two think I'm so _fucking _stupid why even bother bringing me back, huh? What was the point?"

Miranda was quick to shut down her aggravated rambling and the suggestion that the Illusive man was being anything but forthcoming and honest. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play the idiot," Shepard snapped. "You're smarter than everyone on this ship put together." She paused then, snorting. "It's one of the things I've always liked about you."

The half praise wasn't taken well, not that Shepard had expected it to be. Miranda was positively vibrating with rage, every ounce of her energy apparently dedicated to detesting Shepard in that moment. She seemed ready to let loose a verbal barrage, and then the look faded into something more collected.

Miranda had fought to regain at least a segment of her composure.

"You can take Jacob with you tomorrow."

Rejection.

It was out, the final word on the matter. Miranda didn't need to elaborate, didn't need to explain. She wouldn't be going groundside with Shepard as requested. It was the first time she had denied her commander on a professional level in such a way since their meeting, and Shepard knew it went beyond that.

The first and final denial.

"No thanks," she returned through a sneer," I'll stick with people I know for sure I can trust."

Miranda rolled her eyes at the childishness of the remark and turned on her heels. She strutted out of the room, determined to stay on course even if Shepard called her back.

She didn't.

Shepard moved to lean against her desk as she watched the woman depart, arms folded tightly under her chest.

"Clearly I haven't been doing that so far," she muttered as the doors closed. Shepard didn't mean a word of that, it honestly didn't make sense. It had merely been one final verbal punch to swing out towards the woman in her bitterness.

The hit landed.

Miranda stormed into the elevator, fists clenched and teeth ground together. She gripped the pad in her hand far too tightly and growled as the elevator took its time returning her to the safety of her room. In a fit over the inanimate device's nerve she flung the tool in her hand against the wall.

The datapad slammed in the metal panels before clattering to the ground, the screen flickering weakly twice before going completely dark. Miranda sniffed.

"Stupid," she muttered, eyes to the floor.

And just above her, Shepard was back at her desk. She had returned to her chair, fingers desperately seeking the refuge of the model pieces there, her last comfort.

Two pieces were in hand. They were supposed to fit. They were _meant _to fit, but for the life of her she couldn't coax them together with her godforsaken trembling hands.

She hated herself for it, because Miranda had been trying.

This had been her greatest effort, it was all she could muster up to offer. She had likely labored over the decision since their return from the mission that morning, had carefully measured the benefits versus the drawbacks in the painfully meticulous way only Miranda knew how.

Miranda was selfless in every aspect of her life. She gave herself for the protection of humanity through Cerberus. She imprisoned herself for the future of her sister. Everything she did was for others, whether it be for the crew or Oriana or the Illusive Man. Every single moment of her life was made up of gracious self sacrifice.

And then there had been Shepard, the one thing she had saw fit to steal for herself. Her only vice, her only act of self indulgence. It was hers, and she had risked it to be selfless once more, to be there for her friend.

Of course Shepard had immediately thrown it back in her face. Of course she had instantly expected – _demanded_ – more.

_What an ass. _

Shepard growled in frustration at her latest failed attempt and dropped the pieces to the desk before sliding her outstretched arms across it. Bits of the cruiser she had been assembling scattered in every direction, rattling along the floor and under the furniture.

Well, if she hadn't been prepared to face her nightmares before, she sure as shit wasn't now.

She cried out again, slamming her fist onto the desktop. It hurt like hell and certainly hadn't been worth it. Wincing, she slouched in her chair, letting her head loll back as used her other hand to rub at her now tender knuckles.

"Stupid," she sighed out, utterly defeated, unreasonably exhausted.

"Just plain stupid."

* * *

A/N: Well Miranda certainly gave a different sort of comfort than Shepard attempted to offer in Stay, but I couldn't make it end happily this time around because I'm quite confident in this sort of situation my two favorite ladies would bugger everything all up. Shepard is just so pushy about her silly notions of love and Miranda is never good with these sorts of things. Ah well. Shep's totally going to crawl downstairs and grovel at Miranda's door in the morning. Whether she's let in or not is a whole different story.

Good luck, Commander.


End file.
